Animals and Justice Part II

In Justice as Fairness the entities are restricted to those parties which possess “the two moral powers.” There are a number of problems with Rawls’ political conception of justice. The greatest of these is the issue of what entities are represented in the Original Position, and as such are considered to have rights under the basic structure. This is the major problematic aspect of Rawls’ conception of political justice because it assumes that the only entities which involve themselves in society, or are forced to be involved in society, are humans with “the two moral powers.” This is patently untrue. Society forces its rules upon not only those with “the two moral powers” but also on those without them. This includes not just humans who lack one or both of these powers, for whatever reason, be it developmental disability or the result of an accident, but also animals which are ruled by human law. This paper will argue that entities, specifically any animal, human or otherwise, should be considered under a political conception of justice if they are part of and contribute to the society that holds that conception of justice.
Rawls' description of the workings of the Original Position is roughly as follows. It is a method of determining what the members a society would rationally and reasonably agree to as fair in terms of a political conception of justice. The agreement is to be entered into by “free and equal persons” and “threats of force and coercion, deception and fraud, and so on must be ruled out[p15, Rawls].” He also introduces the idea of the “veil of ignorance,” under which the parties negotiating in the Original Position are unaware of the social position, ethnic group, gender or various other traits of themselves and of those they represent. Although he says that those represented are assumed to be endowed with “various native endowments such as strength and intelligence, all within the normal range,” he does not specify what we can consider “the normal range,” which is part of what the problem is in the first place. Because Justice as Fairness would be chosen above other political conceptions of justice under the Original Position it is a conception of justice that is superior to the other options.
There are a number of aspects of Rawls' ideal theory that are important to the scope of this paper. The first is the idea of society as a fair system of cooperation over time from one generation to the next. The Rawlsian idea of social cooperation has three primary components:
1)It is not merely coordination among people such as in an authoritarian state.
2)It includes terms that are fair and would be reasonably accepted by the participants, such as reciprocity.
3)It is to the rational advantage of those participating.
If we look at this in terms of who is represented, as noted above, we find what Rawls leaves out. We see that he includes those who are able to cooperate, that is those who are able to agree to a conception of justice that will benefit those who can agree to a conception of justice. Given that there are those entities which fall outside of this scope and yet fall within the laws of said society, such as animals or those humans who simply lack the two moral powers, we see the beginnings of the problem.
To a large extent this problem is inherent in nearly all political theory; this is certainly the case in the Western tradition, excepting some strains of utilitarianism such as more recent work by Singer and others. In this tradition anything not considered fully human, which at one time included women, people of color and children, is considered only of derivative value, or of value only insomuch as they were of value to those considered fully human. Generally the range of entities considered human has expanded over time, but it is still the fully-humanness that determines what rights, privileges and protections an entity receives. Rawls includes in his conception of humanness those with the two moral powers; these are the capacity for a sense of justice and a capacity for a conception of the good. However, the goal should not be to expand humanity to everything deserving justice, but simply to involve those things in justice.
The problem with Rawls’ Original Position is not just that it is restricted to specific entities, it is this combined with the fact that those negotiating in the Original Position are self interested that causes problems. If we assume self interestedness and assume that the entities which can enter into the Original Position are limited, in Rawls’ case by the possession of the two moral powers, then we come up against a situation where any entity not represented in the Original Position is considered to have only derivative value in the resulting conception of political justice, meaning they are of no value in and of themselves but only as a means for others or because the comprehensive belief system of some group represented in the Original Position considers them to be valuable. We see this in Rawls in that he gives no justification for the protection of those entities outside those represented in the Original Position. Because of this we have a result that I would find terribly unjust, that any entity not represented in the Original Position has no protections except those that entities which are included in the Original Position chose to give them.
This becomes a problem further because the goods of those entities which are represented in the Original Position differ by group or individual, and because the comprehensive systems which those groups or individuals adhere to give differing amount of value to entities not included in the Original Position, down to no value at all. If there exists a comprehensive system which gives no value to those entities which are not included in the Original Position then individuals which adhere to said comprehensive system can make a compelling argument that the system of political justice allows them to treat entities not represented in the Original Position in whatever way they may wish, including torture and killing said entities, because to stop the individual from acting as such would violate their rights, even assuming that the entity acted upon has no derivative value for other entities represented in the Original Position.
For example, If I am represented in the Original Position then I am given rights and allowed to pursue my goods. If I have a comprehensive system wherein torturing animals is a good, say as a religious rite, then the government which results from the two principles must allow me to torture animals to at least some extent. This is because of the second principle under which the difference principle says that if there is a possible state of distribution of goods where the goods of the most advantaged are increased then the goods of the least advantaged must be maximized. Practically speaking this means that the political institutions must be put together in such a way that even if the majority of people think that no one should be able to torture cats, their goods, or their comprehensive system in this case, must be forwarded in such a way so as to allow me some of my good, cat torturing.
What this means is that it is not only limited to cats, I can include in my goods the damaging of any entity of which I am allowed ownership. So any animal or plant or even, because they were not represented in the Original Position, people who do not have the capacity for moral development. So a sociopath or someone who is developed or incapacitated such that they have little to no rational ability are also not represented by the Original Position and as such are not considered by the basic structure. This lack of protection means that such a person is fair game for whatever treatment society wishes to heap upon them, perhaps as a medical guinea pig or as slave. This differs little from many older political systems but in the extent of entities to which protection is extended. For hundreds of years blacks in America were held as slaves with the justification being that they were not mentally fit to live as free people. Similarly, women have historically held, and in many places now hold, a position subordinate to men on similar rationale. Rawls’ conception of political justice does away with the subordination of women in theory, though not necessarily in practice, a topic outside the scope of this paper.
To give an existing wrong for which there is no provision in Rawls’ conception of political justice we need only look to the practice of factory farming. As I write this there are an enormous number of animals being treated in a way which if a human was subjected to it would be considered inhumane in the extreme. But Rawls’ conception of political justice gives no protection for these poor creatures. One could argue that they are not a part of political society and thus do not deserve inclusion in a conception of political justice, but this returns us to the situation of the sociopath or developmentally disabled. They are necessarily a part of society because they have been forced into society. They have been born and bred, quite literally, within the milieu of the state and participate society in a real way. Do they not as such deserve real protection and not just derivative value?
One of the aspects of Rawls' theory that is less than thoroughly covered is that of individuals whom are in a state where they are not able to exercise the two moral power. This may seem a minor point, applicable to only children and those who have the mental problems that sometimes accompany an advanced age. Rawls' does touch on the case of children. In the case of children they are to be considered future citizens, and raised and treated as such. It isn't clear exactly what is meant in this case, but in regards to education Rawls explains that children are to be educated such that they are aware of their political rights. In regards to the family and children Rawls notes that “the principles of justice also impose constraints on the family on behalf of children who are society's future citizens and have claims as such.” Here we can see that entities which lack the two moral powers, children, are protected under the principles of justice. If this is true then there is not in general an argument against having entities which lack the two moral powers have representation in the Original Position. Were this not the case then the principles of justice would not apply to children except insofar as they have derivative value.
One could argue that this application of the principles of justice, even in a limited form, to children could not extend to other entities which lack the two moral powers. Under this objection children are included because they will at some point in the future possess the two moral powers, or they have the potential to possess the two moral powers. The first problem with this argument is that it would only extend to children who we know will make it to adulthood. If a child had a disease which was known to be deadly before said child had possession of the two moral powers then that child would not be represented in the Original Position and would thus not be considered under the principles of justice. It seems exceptionally cruel to treat an already sick child as less than human and not deserving of consideration in a just manner. Most people would agree with this and say that the principles of justice can be extended to children, regardless of their potential development of the two moral powers.
There is a further case, which has been mentioned in brief above, that of the elderly person who is no longer possessed of the two moral power. In this case we can make no argument that they have the potential to develop the two moral powers as we did with the child. It can be argued that because these people were at one time possessed of the two moral powers then they are represented in the Original Position and are thus considered by the principles of justice. I certainly accept this argument. In both of the previous arguments we see that we are willing to admit for inclusion under the principles of justice of entities which lack the two moral powers, it is a small step to apply this to a broad class of entities which Rawls did not consider to be represented in the Original Position, specifically animals.
There are a number of possible ways to allow for the intrinsic value of those entities not represented in Rawls’ Original Position. One of these ways would be to include them as full parties represented in the Original Position and thus having them share the full protection of the two principles of justice. This has the drawback of being too inclusive. We cannot expect a mouse to have the same rights and privileges as a person who has full capabilities for rational thought and it is absurd to say that a mouse should be able to hold political office. However, if we accept that all entities should be considered to be covered by the two principles of justice then we would have to allow for mice or rabbits or dogs to hold office, or at least structure society such that their opportunity to hold offices is supported. It doesn't seem that we can expect reasonable parties to agree to be ruled by animals. This option seems out.
A second option is to represent them in the Original Position but not to give them the full two principles of justice. It would be reasonable to say that while not including all rights into the lesser conception of justice we should include some rights. It can be reasonably assumed that even those entities without the two moral powers would consider the right to life to be necessary, as would they consider the right to not have gross bodily harm inflicted upon them. Further, we can say that it would be possible to include them in calculations under the difference principle The reasoning for this is that we know that these entities participate in society and we know that they have goods which they pursue, though not in the form of a rational life plan, and so we know that if they had a choice of distribution and they behaved rationally then they would choose the difference principle, for the same reasons that Rawls gives for those entities he includes in the Original Position. This would result in a protection of those entities not included in the Original Position by Rawls and would not lead to conundrums such as whether a mouse or rabbit should hold office. I’ll admit some influence from Nozick on this point, as he recommends that the principle of utility might be used in regards to animals in a political state; but, the argument against the utility principle in Justice as Fairness give reason for people to choose the difference principle, so why not for those other entities not included?
It might be argued that this arrangement still puts those entities not represented in Rawls Original Position at a distinct disadvantage, and I do not disagree. There are a number of entities left out wholly, such as animals which are not a part of society at all, plants, and inanimate objects. The point here is not to perfect the theory of justice as fairness, but to make it more fair. We can look back to the case of factory farming for an example of how this would be more fair. The cows, or whatever animals are farmed, will be included in the political conception of justice and the calculations of the difference principle. In this case we would find that we could not, most likely, allow the death and mistreatment of the animal as an acceptable outcome for the good of someone eating meat. This would hold in other cases as well, such as for the sociopath or the developmentally disabled. In addition, it might be the case that nature would be preserved as habitat for animals, or, if we wanted to include nature in general in our calculation, nature would be protected in and of itself, though it is not totally clear that this would be the case. The last of the suggestions would clearly bring up issues far to complex to cover in a short paper, but it should be left open for consideration.
A major objection to the argument in this paper is that under it we would be forced to included entities such as corn or wheat or other plants which are included in human society in a way similar to farmed animals. This is a difficult objection to deal with because neither plants nor non-human animals are possessed of the two moral powers and yet we see the inclusion of plants within a conception of justice as being basically absurd. No one wants to argue that my spider plant deserves consideration in political conceptions of justice. There are two possible responses to this objection, the first is the more acceptable. We should exclude plants, and even some lesser animals because animals have the ability to pursue their good in an active way as opposed to a purely reactive way. For example, if one watches a cat it is clear that the cat has an idea of what it is doing when it chases birds. It does not follow a simplistic plan wherein it simply reacts to the presence or absence of sunlight, it creatively chooses the route by which it will attack the bird. It is because of these two reasons that we can include animals and not plants.
Alternatively, we can argue that this is not in fact an objection, but a natural outgrowth of the theory. Though we may find it absurd to argue that corn has rights, the majority of people alive today find it absurd for people to argue that animals have rights. If it is the case that this argument requires that we include plants in our political conception of justice then, assuming that the argument holds, could we not say that we should do so. In the same way that the arguments in Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Women were argued against because they would extend rights to animals, sould we not say that it is in fact our notion of what is absurb that is flawed and not the argument herein?
An additional argument against this position might be that including entities which lack the two moral powers will denigrate the position of those whom Rawls includes in the Original Position. On the surface this seems to be a fair objection, but in fact it is just another way of saying that said entities lack moral standing. Does it denigrate the position of men to argue that women have rights? Or the position of Whites to argue the same of people of color? Further, It is good to remember here that what we have shown here is that animals should be protected by a political conception of justice, not that they have equal moral standing in a comprehensive moral conception of justice. Or put another way, If I light a candle while under a spotlight it does not decrease the light but increase it. The point is to expand the conception of justice.
The goal is to allow that those entities which lack the two moral powers to be integrated into a just society in a way that is just for those entities, not just for the entities possessed of the two moral powers. Because those entities without the two moral powers have different abilities and need there need to be a different standard applied to them, one that is not the same as that applied to those entities which possess the two moral powers. One way to think of this is as in the feminist conception of equality wherein equality is considered given the differences between the sexes. In this case saying that because men get time off if they get pregnant then it is consistent with equality for women to get time off if they get pregnant. Of course, men cannot get pregnant, so they would never get that time off. Similarly, to say that we will extend the benefits of society only to those who are able, theoretically or actually, to participate in the cooperation is misguided because we still force said entities to contribute to society and to follow the rules of society.
I hope I have shown that Rawls’ conception of political justice is lacking and that it can be expanded so as to include more entities within it. I for one cannot countenance a theory of justice which allows for torture and murder simply because of reasons of rationality or moral ability. The inclusion of those entities not possessing those traits can be included in such a way as shown above without denigrating those previously included in the Original Position.

Zeus and the Cats

Ethics can be seen as one of the most important fields of philosophical inquiry. Unlike most others, it is intended to guide our actions in life and tell us what is and is not correct. In metaethics we discuss the terms of the debate in ethics. How we can discuss ethics, what we can know and how we can know it about ethical or unethical behavior. One of the most important issues in metaethics is the ontological status of moral norms, are there objective, “real,” moral norms or are norms subjective if existent at all? This paper will argue that there is no reason to claim the objective moral norms exist because there is no successful argument for objective moral norms. An important part of this argument is that supporters of objective moral norms must positively establish their existence and have not.
The existence of the specific moral norms of our society is contingent upon our history. That is to say the normative claims about specific actions that we may or may not choose to take, killing, stealing etc., is contingent upon the historical path of our society. Had we a different history then we would have different norms. This is clearly evidenced by the fact that different societies with different histories have different specific moral norms. One could argue that because of the contingency of moral norm upon history there is a lack of objective moral norms. But this would be too quick of a conclusion, for it is entirely possible, and if they exist it is likely, that objective moral norms are not specific in nature, but general. For example, in some places it is not polite to burp after dinner, in others it is considered a compliment. It may be that the manifestation of the norm is contingent, and there is a deeper moral norm that says one should respect one's host. So the argument that the historical contingency of specific moral norms indicates that there is a lack of objective moral norms is a weak argument at best.
There is however a strong argument against objective moral norms. That is that there is no reason that we would accept their existence if it were not for historical reasons. Put simply, were we never made aware of the idea of the moral norms of our society, be they general or specific, we would have no reason to believe that they existed nor that they were objective. To illustrate this point let me use an analogy. There are likely no people who believe in the objective reality of the god Zeus. This has nothing to do with his actual ontological status and everything to do with our history. Were the Roman empire not to have adopted Christianity as its religion in the fifth century then there is a fair likelihood that there would still exist today people who believe in the literal existence of the god Zeus. In the same way, we have inherited not only the specific moral norms which we have today, but also the idea of objective moral norms, from our social history, and more specifically from Plato. It seems clear, given that there are a great number of philosophers who argue against the existence of objective moral norms, that there could certainly be a society that lacks any belief in objective moral norms, just as our society lacks any belief in the literal existence of Zeus.
It should be noted here that none of the previous arguments are necessarily arguments against the existence of moral norms; it is entirely possible that the historically contingent belief in objective morals matches up with the actual existence of objective morals. One could argue that this is the case with a number of our other beliefs. For instance, the fact that we believe cats to exist is contingent upon our history, specifically the part of history where we determined that cats exist by seeing cats. However, this case differs from the case of objective moral norms in that we cannot posit the existence of any kind of cat that exists in the same way as objective moral norms and observe said cat in the real world. We could argue, and people have, for an objective ideal cat, similar to the Platonic cat form, but this seems to be putting the cart before the horse. We are back again at the fact that the only reason that we would argue for the existence of a cat form is because of historical contingency. How is this different from my knowing that a real cat exists?
There are two possible answers here. The first is that it is not different. Both are obviously cases of historically contingent knowledge and are thus equally valid. But ,given the example of the belief in Zeus' literal existence as historically contingent knowledge I think that this is an unsatisfying answer, unless we wish to put Zeus and cats in the same ontological category. The second answer is that in the case of the cat I have an objective experience of cats. That is, I have seen, heard, touch, and, unfortunately, smelled cats. Whereas I have never had any direct experience with objective moral norms, only with specific moral norms, which we have established above as clearly not objective. The point here is not to prove that there are no moral norms, but to establish that we only believe in them for historically contingent reasons that differ from those historically contingent reasons that we believe in things like cats. Therefore, objective moral norms need not exist for us to have a belief in them, indeed, neither do cats. It could be the case that I believe in cats and have never experienced one, but merely heard stories. And if it is the case that we can believe that something exists for reasons only of historical contingency, such as the existence of Zeus, then we must marshal a stronger positive argument than mere assertion of existence. From this we can see that an argument for objective moral norms must not simply refute the general arguments against moral norms, but must positively establish their existence. In fact, the only reason that this is not more recognized, as it would be were someone refuting arguments against the existence of Zeus or unicorns, is because the belief in objective moral norms is so culturally embedded in our society.
Unfortunately, the usual tack of those in favor of the existence of objective moral norms is mostly to simply argue against the naysayers and assert that because people believe in moral then they must exist. Shafer-Landau is an exception to this, he both argues against the negative view and for the positive view. In his piece Ethics as Philosophy: A Defense of Ethical Nonnaturalism he begins by laying out his argument as follows:
1.Ethics is a species of inquiry; philosophy is its genus.
2.A species inherits the essential traits of its genus
3.One essential trait of philosophy is the realistic status of its truths
4.Therefore moral realism is true.
He takes both one and two as “extremely plausible – so plausible that [he] will proceed here by assuming, rather than arguing for, their truth.”[p62] Herein lies a major error. That is to say, unless we assume realism, Shafer-Landau must first show that all species in a genus have a trait before he can show that that trait is essential. Moreover, to say that philosophy has essential traits beyond the obvious and trivial needs to be supported. It certainly makes clear that he is a realist, but it does not advance his argument. To build a convincing argument he must build from a more solid base.
His argument is problematic in two ways. The first is that Ethics is a species of philosophy not necessarily so but contingently so. It is a historical aspect of the genus philosophy that makes ethics a species thereof. That is to say, it is only because the great Greeks included it, centrally in fact, in their study of philosophy that we consider it a part of our philosophy. It could also be considered a species under the genus theology, which talks about things related to God or gods, and thus we could say that ethics is related to God. It is only when we assume moral realism that we can say that ethics is a proper species of the genus philosophy. This is the case for of a number of reasons. The first reason is that if we allow for proper species of a genus then we must have a method of determining what those species are. The only method for doing this other than relying on historical contingency is to determine whether the species has the essential trait of the genus. In this case we see that if an essential trait of philosophy is the realistic status of its truths then it must be shown that ethics possesses this trait before we can determine whether or not ethics is a proper species of the genus philosophy.
The second though related problem with Shafer-Landau's argument is that the second premise is not true. Species do not necessarily inherit anything from their genus. Shafer-Landau seems again to be assuming a sort of categorical realism. For as noted above, we can only stake out the extent of a genus with knowledge of the species.
In response to the negative arguments he brings up two interesting points, but ultimately his points fail to rescue his argument from the problems in the earlier discussion on objective moral norms. The essence of his argument is that arguing that disagreement on the existence of objective moral norms is no more an argument against their existence than disagreement on other issues, say whether there are cats, is an argument against the existence of cats. This is obviously correct, as if it were not, the whole history of philosophical discourse would have been for naught as the mere act of disagreement, all too common among philosophers, would indicate the lack of any truth behind any position. Again, I note that this in no way establishes the existence of objective moral beliefs, it is the equivalent of saying “but, you cannot prove that Zeus doesn't exist.”
He further argues that disagreement also does not rule out epistemological access to objective moral norms, assuming they exist. This is an important point because if objective moral norms existed and we had no epistemological access to them they would be about as useful as a planet full of unicorns five galaxies away, which is to say not useful at all. His primary point is that our agreement or disagreement on things now does not necessarily mean that we will never have epistemological access to them at some point. One example of this is the existence of planets around other worlds. Prior to ten or fifteen years ago we had no epistemological access about the existence thereof. And people disagreed. Yet, now we do know where the planets are and how big and such, equivalent to knowing what the actual objective moral norms are, despite the prior disagreement. But this is no argument for the existence of said norms, only that if they exist it is possible that someday we might know them.
Ultimately, the arguments in favor of the existence of objective moral norms are weak and generally, as pointed out before, focused around arguing against the disproofs. Of those norms. If one merely argues against the disproofs of something, one can never hope to prove the existence thereof. I have shown herein the errors inherent in the present arguments for objective moral norms.

English, Official Language

There's a good post over at Brain Mash about why there is no point in making English the official language. I certainly agree, there are no reasons outside of racist reasons to make English the official language. Moreover, it would likely be unconstitutional. The first amendment protects freedom of speech, which certainly must include what language speech is in or it is a useless amendment.

On a similar note, I have recently found out that one of my favorite stories about official languages and the United States is an urban legend. I hate that, especially for such a great story.

More God Delusion

One of the things that Dawkins gets flat wrong in The God Delusion is when he talks about ethnic cleansing and religion.

"Iraq, as a consequence of the Anglo-American invasion of 2003, degenerated into sectarian civil war between Sunni and Shia Muslims. Clearly a religious conflict - yet in the Independent of 20 May 2006 the front page headline and first leading article both describe it as 'ethnic cleansing'. 'Ethnic' in this context is yet another euphemism. What we are seeing in Iraq is religious cleansing."

This would be all fine and well, if religion were somehow separate from ethnicity, which it is most certainly not. Ask a Jew if you are unclear on this. The Sunni and Shia communities in Iraq are not different only in religion, and the fact that they have different religions is but one facet of their individual cultures. In Iraq prior to the invasion there was not as much enmity between the two groups, but Saddam still promoted Sunnis over Shia. Not because of their religion, Iraq was secular prior to the invasion, but because they were culturally closer to Saddam than the Shia.

Richard Dawkins

Well, I'm in the process of reading The God Delusion. I have a number of problems with it, a lot of the arguments are a bit sloppy. Dawkins did however manage to woo me with complements.

"I mean it as a compliment when I say that you could almost define a philosopher as someone who won't take common sense for an answer."

So true.

“The student of politics, then, must study the soul, and must study it with these objects in view, and do so just to the extent which is sufficient for the questions we are discussing; for further precision is perhaps something more laborious than our purposes require.“ Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics[I,13]

I don't believe in the soul, but I can definitely get behind Aristotle on this one. Politics is about what people are and what they can be. Sure, when you take classes in political science, something I've done quite a bit of, you learn a lot of things seemingly unrelated to this, but really, you learn about people. How people organize themselves. How people interact. What people think is acceptable. The human soul, in non-spiritual way.

Unfortunately, many programs lose track of this. I know the program at San Francisco State doesn't emphasize it enough. The program doesn't emphasize that all the theory and history that we learn is meant to be applied to people; and not to some theoretical inhabitant of the state of nature. No, to real life people who live and breath and love and hate and fight wars and die. But political science seems to have forgotten that we talk about the real.

Strangely I've found that the philosophy department does do this. I think that this is the reason I feel more comfortable in the philosophy department, because it understands that it is dealing with real stuff, stuff that matters. The irony of the situation is not lost on me. That the philosophy department would be more in touch with the real world was a great surprise, to say the least. But, so it goes.

Atheists and Islam

There is a recent post here about how religions fight among each other because they believe different things. While true, it is really blown out of proportion. The blogger in question make the mistake of saying "They attacked us on 9/11, and if we're to believe what they say and write, they attacked because we don't subscribe to the writings in another book." which is just wrong, wrong, wrong. None of the groups which attack the U.S. and U.S. interests say that it is because of what we believe, they never have.

Yes, they often think that we have degenerate beliefs and morals, but they certainly don't think that's reason enough to kill people in the U.S. No, the reason they say they attack us is because we support the oppression of Muslims around the world. We give the most support to Israel. More support than we give any other country in the world. Of course, some people claim that the arabs are just jealous of Israel and so get all bent out of shape when their own governments do little to help the Palestinians. But this belies the fact that it was Israel* that created the problem in the first place. And it also ignores the fact that Israel is so successful to a large extent because of the massive amount of money that comes in from the U.S.

Most of all, it simply makes no sense that someone would travel across the world to kill themself and others simply because they had different religious beliefs. I mean, people don't do that, they never have. Sure there are cases like the crusades, but the crusades served a purpose far larger than just religious. There is nearly always an issue other than religion that brings about these confrontations.

*Well, perhaps we can spread the blame around, Britain is far from innocent in all of this as usual, but Israel certainly perpetuates the problem.

On the Supposed Neutrality of Technology

There is a common refrain among scientists, engineers and pro-technology folks: that technology is morally neutral and it is people that put said technology to uses which are wither moral or immoral. I think this is a bunch of nonsense spread by people who want it to be true so they have an excuse to do what they wish and to develop all the fun new toys they wish.

It is certainly true that a technology in and of itself cannot be immoral, meaning the mere idea of that technology. But it is certainly the case that the actual existence or creation of the technology can be immoral. Take nuclear weapons, for example. We can say that nuclear weapons are morally neutral, but that really is not the case. The mere fact of their existence reinforces the status quo, which is unjust, and thus nuclear weapons are an immoral technology. Part of the problem here is that the context in which we exist is important to whether or not something is moral.

We live in a patriarchal society, one that denigrates and oppresses women. In this context my staring at a woman's breasts, because I'm male, contributes to that oppression. If, however, we lived in a matriarchy, the same actions would not be contributing to women's oppression and would thus not be immoral. This is analogous to technology in our world. Genetic engineering of humans before birth to become stronger or to become more in line with the dominant value structure is immoral in our current, and any near future, society because it will not only reinforce the status quo, it will also increase the power of those currently at the top.

A similar issue is the selective abortion of fetuses based on the probable sex of the baby. In China this is a problem to a fair extent, in fact there is now about a 1.06:1 ration of men to women being born now. The problem here is that this will reinforce the patriarchal nature of the system and will thus cause more oppression of women in China. In this context the technology which can be used to determine the sex of a fetus and abort it are the technologies which are not neutral.

To use a different analogy we can look at evolution and mutation. Mutations are never in and of themselves good, bad or neutral, it is always within the environmental context which they receive value. Likewise with technology.

So, what is the point? Well, first and foremost the point is that we need to be very careful about which technologies we develop and encourage. Things like genetic alteration of humans have the potential to be incredibly bad, not just in a practical sense but in a moral sense. This means we need to look long and hard at what we are doing now in terms of research and technology and rethink it from the ground up, as a society.

Eugenics

There is an interesting piece about Anthony Flew and eugenics. For those who don't know, Anthony Flew was rather famous as an atheist and is now rather famous as an ex-atheist. He is known for writing The Presumption of Atheism, an essay on why atheism is more a negative descriptor than a positive descriptor, that is to say that when I say that I am an atheist I mean only that I don't believe in God, not that I'm sure there is no God. He is, as noted before, no longer an atheist but a Deist.

The story of his "conversion" has struck me as somewhat sad, not because he decided to be a deist, but because of the way that a number of Christian authors jumped at the occasion of an older man finding Deism as an excuse to put words into his mouth. If you check out interviews with him it is clear that he gets confused easily and isn't at the top of his game mentally. So, of course, you have an unscrupulous Christian who uses this as a chance to push non-deist views.

Bleh.

On to my point though.

I was thinking about it and it seems that if someone thinks that humans are the result of intelligent design then doesn't it naturally follow that eugenics is okay? I say this because intelligent design essentially is eugenics. You know, some smart person/species guiding the genetic development of other species certainly sounds like eugenics to me.

Related, not the same.

LHL has a good post, as usual, over on her blog about how most of the public discourse around Islam deals with it as if the Christian paradigm were the real religious form and you just have to change a few names and then you have Islam. Like LHL I try to share what I know about the religion so that people don't have these weird-ass ideas about Islam. And let me tell you how much some people don't get it.

First, the Sunni-Shi'a split. No people, it isn't Protestants and Catholics. It would be better to consider it closer to the Catholic-Orthodox split, though that is, of course, not exactly the same. Then there are things like the Ismailis, which don't have any Christian equivalent at all. The Ismailis are my favorite from a theological viewpoint. But I find them interesting not only because of their theology, but because of the history behind them. This is the group that the term assassin came from. Not all of them, but a smaller sect from around 1000-1100 or so.

This is another one of those stories that you hear told wrong all the time. The general myth in the west, especially here in the bay area with all our pot heads, is that the name assassin came from the fact that they would eat hash and thus in Arabic would be called hashshashim, roughly translated to "druggies." That's a bunch of nonsense. There is no doubt that back around a millennium ago these folks were highly feared and did indeed assassinate people. But, the drug stuff is a bunch of propaganda made up by their enemies. It's not too unreasonable to understand why the accusations of drugs might have stuck given that often times those from this sect who carried out killings essentially knew they would die; a kind of tenth century suicide bomber, but with a knife instead of a bomb. And what happened is that they were so fearless that people believed that they were on drugs.

Well, that was a pointless but fun ramble.

More Animals and Naturalizing Ethics

Am I frustrated or what. I've been having a back and forth over at Pharyngula about animal testing and the ethics thereof. What is frustrating is that these are people who are clearly intelligent and yet they refuse to even recognize the inconsistency in their positions. You can't simply say that empathy is the basis for morality, because it isn't. Empathy may be why we act in accordance with moral rules, why we generally don't kill people, but it isn't a reason in and of itself for something to be wrong or right. Trying to do this is what philosophers call naturalizing ethics or morality. I have a paper somewhere that makes a valiant attempt at this, but fails.

What it boils down to is what Hume called confusing the is-ought distinction, AKA the fact-value distinction. Just because something is doesn't mean it is right.

The Problem with Capitalism

Well, really there are a number of problems with capitalism but the one that frustrates me the most is the insistence on growth as a positive. I am reading Making Globalization Work by Joseph E. Stiglitz right now and he continues on this path. He seems to believe that if we tweak international trade treaties in just the right way then the world will become the happy-go-lucky place the capitalist theorists always seem to predict. Of course, we do not have enough resources for everyone to live like us. I haven't even really seen a decent study done on what level of subsistence the world can reasonably support in a sustainable way.

None of this is the fault of capitalism per se, but it has certainly been embedded into capitalism from its biblical roots. Yes, this like so many other pathologies in the west comes from religious beginnings. Genesis 1:26-30, in which God gives the earth to man and tells him to "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." Yes, we love more. We love to own and possess and subdue. Capitalism just gives us new reasons and excuses.

The Dogmas of the New Atheists

I am atheist, I do not believe in god, or even God. I've never believed. I've tried, but it never really worked. But that never bothered me too much, I have no problem living without a god or gods. What is starting to get to me is these so called New Atheists. They annoy me to no end for a few reasons. They love them some Muslim bashing. They make claims about theologies about which they obviously know nothing. But most of all the claim to hate dogma, all the while holding dogmatic stances.

The First Dogma: Reason above all else.

Fairly self explanatory, but perhaps I'll expand. This is the apparent belief that only the use of reason applied to evidence we find in the real world can give us knowledge of the world. I've never seen this explicitly defended by the new atheists, though there are certainly philosophers, not even recent ones, who have argued for or against this position.

The Second Dogma: Causality

It may seem a silly thing to call a dogma, but it is one nonetheless. There is no one who has, to my knowledge, proved causality. I don't even know how one would go about doing such a thing.

The third Dogma: What Science can show us in the world is what really exists.

This is one of my favorite. Why? Because it clearly contradicts the First dogma. How can the fact that, as even scientists agree, theories are always tentative and are thus unable to exactly describe the world, assuming there is one, be supported by reason? Clearly the problem is the second dogma, there must be something causing those theories to be what they are.

Finally I'd like to address a point that annoys me to no end: Ockham's Razor. It is not a law of nature nor of logic. It is not always right. It is a convenience when working up a theory and is often the best way to theorize, but to say that does not mean one can use it as an argument against God, or against whatever you which to turn it. Why can I not coin Shakespeare's Razor, that says that one should always multiply entities? I suppose it wouldn't always be helpful, but neither is the stubborn belief that the simplest explination is always the closest to the truth.

P.S. And the Philosopher hating is getting on my nerves. Science wouldn't exist if it weren't for philosophers. A whole lot of stuff wouldn't, so quit with the barbed remarks. If you really think reason is so great then I suggest you try to reason your way through some philosophy before you dismiss it.

On who and what is left out

A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle
-James Keller
There are a number of problems with Rawls’ conception of political justice. The greatest of these is the issue of what entities are considered in the original position. In Justice as Fairness these entities are restricted to those parties which possess “the two moral powers.” This is the major problematic aspect of Rawls’ conception of political justice because it assumes that the only entities which involve themselves in society, or are forced to be involved in society, are humans with “the two moral powers.” This is patently untrue. Society forces its rules upon not only those with “the two moral powers” but also on those without them. This includes not just humans who lack one or both of these powers, for whatever reason, be it developmental disability or the result of an accident, but also animals which are ruled by human law.

The problem with Rawls’ original position is not just that it is restricted to specific people, but it is this combined with the fact that those negotiating in the original position are self interested that causes problems. If we assume self interestedness and assume that the entities which can enter into the original position are limited, in Rawls’ case by the capacity for moral development, then we come up against a situation where any entity not included in the original position is considered to have only derivative value in the resulting conception of political justice. We see this in Rawls in that he gives no justification for the protection of those entities outside those included in the original position. Because of this we have a result that I would find terribly unjust, that any entity not included in the original position has no protection except those that entities which are included in the original position choose to give them.

This becomes a problem further because the goods of those entities which are included in the original position differ by group or individual, and because the comprehensive systems which those groups or individuals adhere to give differing amount of value to entities not included in the original position, down to no value at all. If there exists a comprehensive system which gives no value to those entities which are not included in the original position then individuals which adhere to said comprehensive system can make a compelling argument that the system of political justice allows them to treat entities not included in the original position in whatever way they may wish, up to and including torture and killing, because to stop the individual from acting as such would violate their rights, assuming that the entity acted upon has no derivative value for other entities included in the original position.

For example, if I am included in the original position then I am given rights and allowed to pursue my goods. If I have a comprehensive system wherein torturing animals is a good, say as a religious rite, then the government which results from the two principles must allow me to torture animals to at least some extent. This is because of the second principle in which the difference principle says that if there is a possible state of distribution of goods where the goods of the most advantaged are increased then the goods of the least advantaged must be maximized. Practically speaking this means that the political institutions must be put together in such a way that even if the majority of people think that no one should be able to torture cats, their goods, or their comprehensive system in this case, must be forwarded in such a way so as to allow me some of my goods, cat torturing that is.

What this means even more so is that it is not only limited to cats, but I can also include in my goods the damaging of any entity of which I am allowed ownership. So any animal or plant or even people who do not have the capacity for moral development, because they were not included in the original position. So a sociopath or someone who is developed or incapacitated such that they have little to no rational ability are also not protected by the original position. This lack of protection means that such a person is fair game for whatever treatment society wishes to heap upon them, perhaps as a medical guinea pig or as slave. This differs little from many older political systems but in the extent of entities to which protection is extended. For hundreds of years blacks in America were held as slaves with the justification being that they were not mentally fit to live as free people. Similarly, women have historically held, and in many places now hold, a position subordinate to men on similar rationale. Rawls’ conception of political justice does away with this subordination in theory, though not necessarily in practice, a topic outside the scope of this paper.

To give an existing wrong for which there is no provision in Rawls’ conception of political justice we need only look to the practice of factory farming. As I write this there are an enormous number of animals being treated in a way which if a human was subjected to it would be considered inhumane in the extreme. But Rawls’ conception of political justice gives no protection for these poor creatures. One could argue that they are not a part of political society and thus do not deserve inclusion in a conception of political justice, but this returns us to the situation of the sociopath or developmentally disabled. They are necessarily a part of society because they have been forced into society. They have been born and bred, quite literally, within the milieu of the state and contribute to society in a real way. Do they not as such deserve real protection and not just derivative value?

There are a number of possible ways to allow for the intrinsic value of those entities excluded from Rawls’ original position. One of these ways would be to include them as full parties considered in the original position. This has the drawback of being too inclusive. We cannot expect a mouse to have the same rights and privileges as a person who has full capabilities for rational thought and it is absurd to say that a mouse should be able to hold political office. However, if we accept that all entities should be considered to be covered by the two principles of justice then we would have to allow for mice or rabbits or dogs to hold office, or at least structure society such that their opportunity to hold offices is supported. This option seems out.

A second option is to include them in the original position but only in regards to the second half of the second principle. The reasoning for this is that we know that these entities participate in society and we know that they have goods which they would pursue, and so we know that if they had a choice of distribution and they behaved rationally then they would choose the difference principle, for the same reasons that Rawls gives for those entities he includes in the original position. This would result in a protection of those entities not included in the original position by Rawls and would not lead to conundrums such as whether a mouse or rabbit should hold office. I’ll admit some influence from Nozick on this point, as he recommends that the principle of utility might be used in regards to animals in a political state; but, the argument against the utility principle in Justice as Fairness give reason for people to choose the difference principle, so why not for those other entities not included?

It might be argued that this arrangement still puts the entities not included in Rawls original position at a distinct disadvantage, and I do not disagree. The point here is not to perfect the theory of justice as fairness, but to make it more fair. We can look back to the case of factory farming for an example of how this would be more fair. The cows, or whatever animals are farmed, will be included in the calculations of the difference principle. In this case we would find that we could not, most likely, allow the mistreatment of the animal as an acceptable trade off for the good of someone eating meat. This would hold in other cases as well, such as for the sociopath or the developmentally disabled. In addition, nature would be necessarily preserved as habitat for animals, or, if we wanted to include nature in general in our calculation, nature would be protected in and of itself. The last of the suggestions would clearly bring up issues far to complex to cover in a short paper, but it should be left open for consideration.

An additional argument might be that including entities which lack the two moral powers will denigrate the position of those whom Rawls includes in the original position. On the surface this seems to be a fair objection, but in fact it is just another way of saying that said entities lack moral standing. It is good to remember here that both the first principle of justice and the first part of the second principle are prior to the difference principle. Or put another way, If I light a candle while under a spotlight it does not decrease the light but increase it. The point is to expand the conception of justice.

I hope I have shown that Rawls’ conception of political justice is lacking and that it can be expanded so as to include more entities within it. I for one cannot countenance a theory of justice which allows for torture and murder simply because of reasons of rationality or moral ability. The inclusion of those entities not possessing those traits can be included in such a way as shown above without denigrating those previously included in the original position.

Animals and Rights

After reading Rawls' Justice as Fairness the biggest thing that hit me was the lack of any talk about non-human animals and where they stood in terms of political justice. He made it pretty clear, by omission, that are given no intrinsic value but only were of derivative value, that is, they are only valuable insofar as they are valuable to humans. As far as I'm concerned this sort of anthropocentric view is totally unsupportable. There are a couple reasons for this.

First, If viewed only as of derivative value then all sorts of abuses and poor treatment can be justified. What is wrong with the horrendous conditions of factory farming if the animals treated as such have no intrinsic value? Ultimately this would lead to the extinction of nearly all, if not all, non-human species of animals, as one by their simple existence got in the way of some human right of free travel, or the human good of eating meat.

Second, where do we draw the line between those who are protected and those who are not protected by society? It's easy to say that humans should come first, but lacking a religious argument there is little support for that position. One could argue that it is human rationality that sets us apart from animals, and other forms of life, but I'd imagine that there are developmentally disabled people out there of lower intelligence than some exceptionally intelligent animals, or there is the possibility thereof. But does that mean that it's okay to kill and eat those persons? Or do we simply define the level of protection as covering any animal which has a certain level of intelligence? This too has problems. It is essentially an ad hoc solution that is based on an ideal of anthropocentric thought, wherein we, humans, are the standard by which all other animals are judged. But the problem is that the vast majority, if not all, animals are of such intelligence that they cannot be allowed political rights to the extent that humans enjoy them.

What this boils down to is essentially that we have a species we call human (Homo Sapien) and yet we have no conclusive way to pick every individual humans out as being different from non-humans, except by our intuitions. In evolutionary biology it is a difficult thing to delineate what a species really is. Many of the definitions of species end up making delineating basically arbitrary. For example, the use of genetic markers for defining species does not rely on some innate aspect of a species, it relies on humans saying "you get to be in this species if you have this DNA."

Why is this important? Well, we're going to figure out what exactly we mean by human, and who gets to be human before we can talk about justice.

Language and Colonialism: escaping the trap.

Over at KTM's blog there is a good post on the problems of studying and/or talking about other cultures without the discourse being inherently orientalizing or colonial due to the imposition of our words upon the social structures of others. I find that I run into this problem a lot in philosophy discourse.

Right now I'm reading translations of Neo-Confucian philosophers, a term made up by the west, and one of the frustrations I have is that they, the translators, translate essential concepts into English. My preferred method would be to leave a number of concepts in the original language as to better understand what the authors are saying as opposed to making it easier to misunderstand by using words I know already, words which have connotative meaning that situate the original texts in such a way as to beg misinterpretation.

One of these words is li, not to be confused with li though both are problematic in terms of translation. Li is generally translated as pattern or principle, but both those translations lack the meaning of li, they are used simply as English substitutes for a Chinese word that is rich in connotative meaning.

Of course, the best method for studying philosophy in another language is to learn that language, but it seems a bit much to expect anyone who wishes to know something of Chinese philosophy to learn Chinese, there'd be no end to the language learning.* But, it doesn't seem to much to ask to do our best to situate the words in their own discourse and not simply drop in an English substitute.

*Not that that would necessarily be bad, mind you.

I'm reading Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals right now. I picked it up because there have been a lot of people talking about Nietzsche at school lately, he seems the new belle of the ball, or perhaps the bete noir, of SF state philosophy students. Maybe it's because I come to philosophy from an anarchist background, but I don't see the big deal. Sure, he's got some interesting stuff on etymology, and his discussion of punishment is definitely a must read. I'm going to have to talk to some of the newly molded Nietzscheans at school and find out what they think is so great.

Oh, and I've been invited to attend a retreat for up and coming young leaders with Willy Brown. It should be very interesting, I'll let everyone* know how it goes.

*all two or three of you who read this thing.

On Atheists

I'm an atheist. I do not believe in god, nor have I ever. Generally speaking I don't believe in the soul nor do I believe in fate. However, the idea that atheism somehow automatically corelates with materialism and naturalism is absurd, thank you very much Pharyngula. From the mouth of PZ Myers
himself:

And oh, yeah, I'm passionate about atheism, but atheism isn't about nothing: it's about valuing reason over superstition, about conquering unfounded fears, about facing the real world without crutches and lies to hold you up. I'm sure someone is going to sit there and dissect the letters of the word and tell me that atheism means only an absence of belief in gods, but screw that — it's about a whole philosophy of thought that is built on materialism and naturalism. It is an idea with substance.

No, in fact, atheism does not suppose materialism or naturalism, it supposes only that there is no god(s). This is exactly why this new movement of atheists(white, middle-class, male lead movement I might add) needs to have a name other than simply "Atheism." Because it is not simply atheism.

What worries me more, and this I most definitely don't fault PZ for, as he is too smart to fall right back into this sort of trap, is the apparent use of evolution as a basis of moral behavior in comments such as:

I have never understood how the morality argument gains any traction at all with anyone simply because you can see rudimentary and sometimes more than that in virtually all other primate groups not to mention other animals.

Morality seems a matter of opinion about natural behaviours of our species. If someone can't understand why they need behave properly to havegroup acceptance I suggest they first observe chimps and then a primary school. You can see many the same lessons being conveyed.

And, even more so in this comment:

But more than this, as an atheist, I see my one and only life in this universe as the only chance I get to leave a positive legacy. My off-spring need the best possible example to follow in order to give them the best chances of passing on my DNA -if they view immoral behavior as okay, then the chances increase that they might not survive to reproduce.

Yes, because that is a basis for morality, that it is useful. Or was I uninformed that one must also be a Utilitarian to be an Atheist. Unfortunately this argument falls into the same trap that theists are so often accused of falling into, argument from good ends. One cannot say that something is moral simply because it is useful, unless there is some proof that utility is a good unto itself, the existence of which I am not aware. Moreover, this all presupposes even the existence of morality. Why does the materialist and naturalist view need morality? If it is simply to convince the theists that we don't just start killing people when we think there isn't a god then it's rather pointless, we could instead simply not kill people.

Myers is himself somewhat guilty in all this talk of morality, though it isn't clear if it is simply a matter of confusing the question or not. Responding to the accusation that "they have particularly failed in their attempt to present a coherent system of morality that in no way rests on a belief in the supernatural." Giving him the benefit of the doubt, he is not arguing the point about which the theist wish to argue. Perhaps this is simply more of the dreaded "framing," but I think not. The theist position is that we can call nothing moral or immoral without God, not that we cannot act morally without a belief in god. The latter is clearly absurd, though many theists certainly make the argument, but the former is a real issue. Can we actually accept morals into our ontology if we accept only what is physical as that which is real?

Worst of all is that so few of these people are willing to engage in conversation about substantive topics, ones which atheists can legitimately disagree on and still be atheists. They dislike the problem of induction even being brought up. They seem to take Occam's Razor as some sort of logical dictum and not as a useful, albeit flawed, tool.

This have been bugging me for a while. Nothing is more frustrating than those who claim to be rational and who then reject either the rational ends of their beliefs, or refuse to discuss those beliefs to in depth because it might threaten their little world view.

Distance Matters

The issue of proximity in terms of moral responsibility is an important one. In his essay Famine, Affluence and Morality Peter Singer puts forth the argument that in the modern, globalized world because we are able to have knowledge of events around the world, and because we can be in contact with people in areas affected by events such as famine who know what should be done to mitigate the harms done by said events, we cannot use proximity as an excuse for inaction. This is problematic because the issue of proximity is more than just an issue of knowledge, it is also an issue of getting the resources to those who need it, and distance always increases the amount of resources needed to get the aid to those who need it. Thus, as long as there is harm which can be mitigated at a close proximity we are morally bound to mitigate that harm first because our mitigating attempts will be more successful.

Singer argues that both the knowledge of global developments and the ability to give money to those in the region who know how to deal with the problem expand our moral duties. While this is true in the abstract it is not true practically speaking. The issue of knowledge is the first problematic aspect of his argument. Assuming that we have knowledge of a harm occurring does not mean that we have knowledge of how to mitigate said harm. Singer seemingly deals with this issue by referring to people in the region who do know methods of mitigating the harm, but this presupposes that we know which people in the region know the correct way to mitigate the harm. By supposing that a specific organization in the region has a better handle on the situation we are making a moral decision based on faulty epistemic assumptions. These events general occur in far flung regions of the world and in cultures quite different from ours. While I personally have more than a passing knowledge of the famine in East Bengal I would still be at a loss as to say which organization would best allocate my funds. This is however not the case for local organizations dealing with hunger in the Bay Area. Because of my proximity to harms in the Bay Area and my knowledge of the groups dealing with the problems I can make an informed decision on where to best put my resources.

Some may argue that even if this is true we still have a moral duty to give because anything will help more than nothing. Again, this is problematic. To use Singer’s example, imagine I am walking by a pond and see a child drowning, I have a moral duty to save the child if I can do so “without sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance.” But imagine further that I am between two pond, one but ten feet away and one two hundred feet away. In the pond nearest me there are five children drowning and I know where lifejackets which could save them all. In the far pond there are ten children drowning and a man who tells me he knows how we can, together, obtain lifejackets to save some number of the children. If I help the children in the closer pond then I can save all the children in the close pond, but I do not know how many children in the far pond will be saved, but I know it will be less than if I help. However, if I help the children in the far pond, I know that the children in the close pond will die, and I still do not know how many of the children in the far pond will ultimately be saved. This is a result of the fact that I must first get to the far pond, thus expending some of my resources, my energy and my time, thereby lessening the efficacy of my help.

Singer’s essay deals with issues in the real world, not simply at an abstract level. In the real world there are harms which I can mitigate in my own community, many just as bad, if not to as great an extent. Because of this by giving money or other resources to mitigate far off harms I am necessarily sacrificing something of comparable moral value and doing less good than I could have otherwise by mitigating harms closer to me.

Quiet Desperation
"The Mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation."

The path we walk through life is not through an untrod wilderness. It is not free from past influence nor is it free from the influence of our own footsteps. But we are often so focussed on our path that we forget that a path is a made thing and not something which arises from outside humankind. Despite this we often know the frustration of being forced upon our path, whether by individuals or society as a whole. There is a way free from this path, however deep the rut has been furrowed. In Walden Thoreau lays out how we are able to step from the path and lose ourselves and why we should. As he says, “But alert and healthy natures remember that the sun rose clear.”[111] We need only nurture those natures and we can see beyond the path and thereby free ourselves to trod new ground.
When younger I lived near an empty lot that was between the street upon which was my house and major thoroughfare, there was, when I first moved there, a small path through the lot, by the time I moved away this small path had been widened significantly by the action of myself and others. I recently met a man who lives on the street and the path is still there, and still wide and well tread. Like this, those who walk the path of society are both following the path and reinforcing the path. People are both a product of the machine and a part of the machine. They know somewhere that this path is somehow wrong. They know what they are expected to cultivate in society, but this clashes with what they must cultivate as an individual, the germs of virtue. It is the clash of these two things which gives rise to the desperation of which Thoreau speaks. We are desperate to allow our virtue to grow and yet the only path we are aware of is that of society. For Thoreau Walden represents the experience which is necessary for each of us to first see the path of society and second that allows us to find a path that lets the seeds of virtue grow. Walden is the experience of being lost, because if we are to see the path of virtue we must first lose the path of society, for like the journey home, our bodies, even without their masters, will follow the path to where it leads.

The bulk of Thoreau’s theory in Walden seems heavily informed by classical Chinese thought. Beyond referencing Confucius, he quotes both Confucius and Mencius. His use of the path as a metaphor is particularly indicative of Chinese philosophical influence. Tao, generally translated as “The Way” but alternatively as “path,” is very important in Classical Chinese thought, not just in Taoism, but also in the writings of Confucius and Mencius. The way is the path which the sage is to follow and is the basis for virtue. Thoreau takes this conception and while accepting the idea in general that society is guided as if on a path, he adds that it is individuals following the path that have created and reinforced the path and not of heavenly origin. He also veers from the classics in that he does not think that the path is here that we can follow to virtue. We must instead look to nature, and it will reveal the failings of our current path, society, and the path to virtue.
"
You who govern public affairs, what need have you to employ punishments? Love virtue, and the people will be virtuous. The virtues of a superior man are like the wind; the virtues of the common man are like the grass; the grass, when the wind passes over it, bends."
This, quoted by Thoreau from Confucius’s Analects, seems to be a case where Thoreau accepts a base idea of Confucius, that laws are but one part of what makes society. The other part is what Confucius describes as the wind bending the grass, that is, those who are put up as superior have a great effect on the actions and thought of others. But he is against the Confucian path for society. In Civil Disobedience he goes so far as to directly deny Confucius:

'“If a state is governed by the principles of reason, poverty and misery are the subject of shame; if a state is not governed by the principles of reason, riches and honors are the subjects of shame.” No: until I want the protection of Massachusetts to be extended to me in some distant Southern port, where my liberty is endangered, or until I am bent solely on building up and estate at home by peaceful enterprise, I can afford to refuse allegiance to Massachusetts, and her right to my property and my life.'

Thoreau does not see poverty as something which should be the subject of shame, in fact he holds it up as noble and the poor as models for right behavior. He sees poverty as closer to the natural way. He cleaves closer to Mencius in his view of human nature.

“A return to goodness each produced each day in the tranquil and beneficent breath of the morning, causes that in respect to the love of virtue and the hatred of vice, one approaches a little the primitive nature of man, as the sprouts of the forest which has been felled. In like manner the evils which one does in the interval of a day prevents the germs of virtues which began to spring up again from developing themselves and destroys them.
After the germs of virtue have thus been perverted many times from developing themselves, then the beneficent breath of evening does not suffice to preserve them. As soon as the breath of evening does not suffice longer to preserve them, then the nature of man does not differ much from that of the brute. Men seeing the nature of this man like that of the brute, think that he has never possessed the innate faculty of reason. Are those the true and natural sentiments of man.”
Man appears as a brute because his evil deeds have crushed the germs of virtue. Society is the pathway that man has created by constant treading upon the the germs of virtue, and because there is a path man follows that path, reinforces that path and thus cultivates a brutish persona. The outward signs of this path are the luxuries against which Thoreau argues. These luxuries act as guideposts along the wrong path. To become virtuous one must avoid the wrong path, that of society, and cultivate the germs of virtue, or rather, allowing the germs of virtue to be cultivated. In The Village Thoreau talks of wondering through the darkest nights trying to find his way home, or more to the point, not of trying to find his way but of not trying and simply allowing his body to find the route home, which it can do “as the hand finds its way to the mouth without assistance.” Thoreau reinforces his view of our natural ability to be know the right thing with this quote from Mencius. “I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born.”[178] The path of society blinds us to the wisdom and truth in the world, but it is possible to find that wisdom and truth.

To see the path of society one must first remove oneself from society. Through nature and our interaction with it can we see society for what it is. Nature does not hew to our expectations, and so we are shown not what society wants us to see or what we want to see but simply what nature reveals. This interaction with nature is exemplified by Thoreau’s experience with the red squirrels at the approach of spring. The squirrels got under his house and “kept up the the queerest chuckling and chirruping,” while Thoreau was reading or writing. Try as he might he could not scare off the squirrels, they were not afraid nor would they leave despite his stomping. In this we find a path of action outside of society. We should be like the squirrels in some respect, we should follow our nature. As the squirrels nature is to play and make noise, regardless of the entreaties and arguments of society or individual person.

To bring this discussion to a more personal level, I just recently had the experience of driving some sixteen hours, from Santa Fe to Oakland. A more apropos illustration of Thoreau’s metaphor of society as a path could not have been found if I went looking. There I was, stuck in a car driving upon a path of asphalt. I had only the choice of which path would serve best to get me to my destination, and not the chance to blaze a new path. Moreover, I was on this literal path because of my metaphoric path. I had to get home so as to write this very paper in time, else I would do poorly in a class I require for my degree. But the drive itself illustrated further the problem of following a path, especially in the contemporary world. While driving I had no time to look at the world, no time to watch the sunset, to see the beautiful hill as I drove by at eighty miles per hour. Moreover, I was in this car, stuck interacting with the world not as a person but as a machine person, hybridized with the auto, my actions and reactions funneled through the machine. A sort of cyborg, not permanently fused to the machine, but dependent upon it. Like this my path in life is hybridized. I attend this university because I wish to learn, just as I drove because I wanted to get home. But it is what flies by along the side of this path that worries me. I have knowledge funneled through the academic format with which I interact. My responses to that knowledge, writings, opinions, etc., is also funneled through the academic path. I respond in writing, such as this essay, or in discussion in class. I often find that I lack the ability to explain the concepts and idea I learn, or think I have learned, to those outside of academia. It is the equivalent of giving walking or cycling directions in San Francisco when you have only driven a car. There are so many one-way streets and ways closed to a driver, routes so designed because it is more efficient if one assumes that driving is the norm, that one giving directions for a car is required to give longer and more circuitous directions that would eve be necessary for more simple forms of transport. Likewise, the vocabulary of academia is so laden with history that I can hardly use a word without it having be used for some thought hundreds of years that is often different and sometime opposite what I intuitively would use it to mean. To explain concepts one must first explain the layout of the language to be used, what cannot be used, what can be used the seemingly wrong way, and what is still open; the last of these of course being the simplest and shortest of the explanations, like telling a person driving in San Francisco that they should assume that they will not be able to turn left.

What worries me most about all this is that I do not see the space in the contemporary world to remove oneself to nature as did Thoreau. Yes, it is possible to return to nature, to camp and hike and such, but it has become such a mediated experience that we hardly see nature for what it is and instead see the conception of nature which society has given us. It is as Thoreau relates in Walden, when he returns to the site of his cabin after the fact and finds that others have used his path. Likewise, we use paths through nature which society has built. We lack the wild lands that existed at the time in which Thoreau was writing. We lack a place separate from society. Perhaps I am too pessimistic in this assessment, but I have searched, I have traveled to places near and far to find something outside all these expectations; but, I always feel the burden of society upon me. I see this in a way as because of Thoreau, or more exactly as a result of society’s response to the threat of Thoreau, and it is a threat. Society has altered to become more invasive, more totalitarian, extending further into our perception of the world. It has trod so heavily upon the germs of virtue that I have my doubts that we can ever escape this path we are on.

We follow these paths, created by man, reinforced by man. They lead our perception and our actions. We must first be separate from them, be lost, before we can see and understand them. We are forced on this path, by threat of force and other more insidious methods. My desperation is that we now lack for a Walden Pond to remove us from these paths.

What is the incentive to create without Intellectual Copyright?

I the comments on my previous post someone brought up the perennial question noted in the title here. And it is a decent question. What is the incentive to create without the possibility of monetary gain?

I should note first that I have only once "made money" off of my intellectual property. I put made money in quotes because I didn't really make money, but I charged. Also because I didn't really charge for the intellectual property. A few years ago some friends and I put out a zine that was all haiku. We all sold them, but would also email the full contents to pretty much anyone who wanted them, with the condition that they wrote us a haiku that we could include in a future issue. Needless to say, we didn't actually make any money, we lost some, but we got some great haiku.

Back to the point. What is the incentive?

Well, the interesting thing about this question is that it ignores the vast expanse of human history during which there was no IP law. That's right, Mozart had no control over his work. And yet people still made art, still invented. What's more, it skips over the more important question: What is the goal of creating art or inventions. Under capitalism and with IP law, there is no incentive to help people without money, so if I had the potential to create a device that would help only people who couldn't buy it, then the profit motive would encourage me to simply not create it.

But we all know that isn't how reality works. Artist create art, whether they get paid or not, and often they don't, often they lose money. I would go so far as to say that the majority of people who create works under copyright don't make money on them, or even "make money." They do it because the have a need to. They do it because the act of creation is an integral part of the human experience, whether it be the creation of a painting or the coding of a program or the invention of something simply because you know it will help people.

People created before there was capitalism. People created before there was money. People probably created before there was language.

Whatever happens, people will create. It's what we do.


P.S.This wasn't aimed at you T-Ray, you just sparked a rant that had been a long time in the making.

People Power
Federalist 51 is a daunting prospect for interpretation. It is short and concise, as are most of the Federalist Papers, but it seems to change subject from its initial discussion of partition of powers in the government to methods of preventing the tyranny of the majority by the creation of a large number of competing factions. This is however not the case. The theme of partitioning powers is constant through the paper, even in the second section when it appears otherwise. This apparent disconnect is accounted for by the fact that the people and by extension the factions which they form are internal to the government. That is to say, the partition of powers laid out in the constitution is complemented by the partition of powers among the various factions. When one reads Federalist 51 with this understanding it becomes a more coherent document.
There are two expedients which Madison proposes to maintain the partition of power as proposed in the constitution. Both rest upon the supposition of competition between people being the normal state of affairs. The first of these, which is a natural outgrowth of the structure of government already, is to give each department of government power separate from the other departments. This will check the various departments because those who make up the departments will be unwilling to give up power and thus will fight usurpations by the other departments. The second method is to have so many factions as to make any one of them unable to gain a majority and in doing so impose tyranny upon the minority. This is to be achieved by sheer size of territory and number of people included under the federal government, which is to be of such a size and include so many diverse groups that it cannot help but be composed of a number of factions too great to allow for a majority.
Part of the problem with the first provision, in terms of Federalist 51, is that it begs the question, in a way. The question Madison puts forth is specifically this:
“To what expedient, then, shall we finally resort, for maintaining in practice the necessary partition of power among the several departments, as laid down in the Constitution?”[Madison, Federalist 51]
The question, essentially, is what will make sure that the different branches of governments do not encroach upon each others power. Yet, later we find that it is in fact the very partitioning of power among the branches that will ensure the separation of powers. Or, to be more specific, the natural political ambition of man given the context of a government so organized will keep each branch in check. As Madison says: “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.” This is problematic in the context of Federalist 51 because, though Madison sees government as “the greatest of all reflections on human nature,”[ibid.] he also says that the expedients are to be internal to the governmental structure, and it is a great leap to say that government is a reflection of human nature and mean that human nature is interior to government structure. Part of the problematic aspect of Federalist 51 is that the question with which it begins is not really the question it wishes to ask. Or, if it is the question it wishes to ask, it is not the question it ultimately answers. The question it answers is what structural aspects are necessary to keep government from becoming tyrannical.
It takes as its one of its suppositions that men are flawed, or “are no angels,” and uses this to explain why the partition of power in the method laid out will stop power from accruing in one branch, which would lead to tyranny. Moreover, the second provision, sheer size as a way to increase the number of different factions, seems to be wholly outside the discussion of separation of powers. Indeed, the discussion in the paper switches tracks in the last paragraph, from a discussion of separation of power, to one of how to stop a majority in the social realm from seizing control and tyrannizing the minority. However, the opposite is the case. While it is true that the discussion of factions does not specifically mention the idea of separation of powers it is a manifestation on the social level of said separation. In the same way that the government structure is formed to play each branch off each other, in a formalized way, having a large republic, and thus a great number of factions, causes a similar competition for power. This competition does not seem to be a part of the government because it is prior to the government. These factions are not formed by the government, with possible exceptions, but are those groups for which the government is formed.
“Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit. In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature, where the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger; and as, in the latter state, even the stronger individuals are prompted, by the uncertainty of their condition, to submit to a government which may protect the weak as well as themselves; so, in the former state, will the more powerful factions or parties be gradually induced, by a like motive, to wish for a government which will protect all parties, the weaker as well as the more powerful.”[Madison]
In this quote Madison connects Liberty and Justice. Moreover he notes that even strong factions, analogous to the strong man, desire the protection of a government because of “the uncertainty of their condition.” This evokes the earlier claim that government is a reflection of human nature.
Despite the fact that the factions appears to be external to the government structure, it is not. In the words of Abraham Lincoln it is a government “of the people, by the people and for the people.” That is to say that because it is a republican form of government the people are not external to the government, they are the constituents of the government. This may be a difficult claim to support, but without this view to connect the two sections of the paper it would seem that Madison simply decided to switch topics, which, while possible, would be unlikely. This does appear to contradict the language which Madison uses, specifically when he says: “In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.” This appears prima facie to rule out the idea fore mentioned, but it does not. To say that a government must first control the governed is to say in this context that it must bind people together into a governed mass, it must form a polity. Then to say that it must control itself means that that polity must constitute itself in such a way so as to minimize the possibility of tyranny. So the great number of factions are in fact internal to the government structure, by nature of being composed of men. Madison uses similar language of submission to government in numerous places, in the earlier quote about the weaker and stronger places, but he never explicitly rules out the people as an internal aspect of the government.
Even in the Constitution, which Madison defends in his paper, the preamble says that the people “ordain and establish this Constitution,” and the Constitution then lays out the way in which power is to be distributed, that is that way in which the polity has chosen constitute itself. It does not put itself above the people. It establishes the method by which the people will organize themselves so as to “form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” The power rests with the people, they have merely organized themselves in such a way as to secure their liberty. There is further evidence of this interpretation when Madison says “by creating a will in the community independent of the majority.” This would mean that it would be possible to have a government outside of the people, a monarchy or tyranny, but Madison rejects this.
A response to this interpretation would likely be that though Madison does not clearly say that the people are not the government, the language he uses clearly implies it. This is a valid criticism, but given the two possibilities: one, that Federalist 51 has the constant thread of forming a government using mens’ ambition as a method to ensure liberty and that said government includes the people; or, two, that Madison switches to an obliquely related topic in the second half, almost seeming to ramble on. Though one could suppose it is not impossible that Madison merely had to fill column inches in the newspaper in which the Federalist Paper was first printed, the first option seems more likely.
So we see that we must accept that when Madison speaks of the partition of powers he refers not only to the plan laid out in the Constitution, but also to the masses of people. This is because the masses of people are in fact a part of the government. The reasoning for this partition is because men are naturally ambitious, and thus the form of government must follow this fact. Despite the fact that he does not clearly state that the people are part of the government, it must necessarily be true is we are to accept Federalist 51 as a coherent argument.

Intellectual property and John Locke

As the previous post noted, Locke loves the capitalism because it increases output of the stuff people need and like. And it with this in mind that the U.S. Constitution includes protection for private property, which is an integral aspect of Capitalism. There are many valid criticisms of Capitalism in general and of the conception of property in the Lockian sense, but that is beyond the scope of this writing. For Locke property boils down to labor, essentially he says "I worked to make this thing, therefore it is mine." He comes to this conclusion by theological and practical reasoning. God gave the earth to Adam to exploit and so all men are allowed to exploit it. It is only when the exploitation of resources by more than one man interact that society is needed. The problem with these views is that they come from a point in history when labor is scarce and resources are plenty. He even says that more men is better than more land.(P42 line21-22) To this day the Lockian conception of property is the closest to the common conception of property in the U.S. The more you work the more property you get, in theory at least.

This all breaks down horribly when applied to intellectual property. Intellectual property is not, and in many ways has never been, a scarce commodity. I can promulgate an idea without losing that idea. Yes, I lose control over the idea and what others can do with it, but unlike physical property it doesn't matter. With physical property control matters because one wishes to be able to use one's property, physically; and, with intellectual property one can still use the property even when others can use it. For example: If I go out and pick some berries, those are my berries because I did the labor to obtain them. I have the right to control over those berries because if I do not have that right then I am deprived of the berries in a real physical way, and cannot eat them. However, if I labor and produce a song and then let someone hear and that person thereby learns the song, possesses it, if you will, I still have access to all the immediate benefits of the song. I can still sing it to make myself happy. I can still sing it to make others happy. True, I cannot sell the song if it is allowed to circulate for free, but that presupposes that I should have a right to sell it in the first place.

The framers of the constitution understood this. They including in the constitution what would be the beginning of U.S. intellectual property. "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries" from Article one section eight. Clearly they don't think that there is a natural right to control of intellectual property, it is instead a created right. It was necessary that they put this created right in the constitution because it had not before been enshrined in common law or legal code. It is however important to note that this section of the constitution is not protecting a natural right such as the first amendment, it is creating a legal structure which allows people control of their writings and inventions. This last point is important because more and more in contemporary times people have begun to think of intellectual property as a natural right, which it is clearly not. We can see even more that it is not a natural right if we look to the history of the world. Before the constitution, there was not a legal mechanism for enforcing these rights, because they do not exist.

Previous to the legal codification of intellectual property artistic creations and idea were either protected by secrecy, i.e. no one has access to the Mona Lisa long enough to copy it, or were open for public consumption, as in a folk song. Someone wrote all those songs we now consider traditional. Whiskey in the Jar was written by someone. We don't know who, but even if we did, they would have had no rights to control who sang it or wrote it out as sheet music because there were no laws about it at the time. Even Mozart had no rights to his music. How then can we say that intellectual property is necessary to increase the number of goods available in our society. It, in fact, reduces them. It reduces them because it makes goods less available by the restrictions it imposes and because it limits the ability of others to make alterations to those goods in a way that makes them better.